Blog

Calling All Dreamers: Neptune & Mercury in Retrograde

Neptune in Pisces went retrograde Monday, 6/9, at 3:49pm EDT, and will remain so all summer and most of fall until 11/15/2014. Retrograde simply means that a planet’s direction appears to reverse, but of course it doesn’t really – it is an effect produced by that planet’s speed and position relative to Earth. And isn’t our experience of anything about perspective? How we see it more so than how something actually is?

Mercury in Cancer (moving into Gemini on 6/17) is currently retrograde, too (until 7/1), and when combined with Neptune retrograde, the two have the power nudge us one way or the other over the fine line between genius and insane. These two mutable planets have always had a loose grasp on what truth is, and the integral quality of re-defining it.

In which direction will you step?

Masculine Mercury retrograde brings all kinds of opportunities to slow down our communications and thinking, to re-organize our mental patterns, speech, and ability to listen. Think of your current forms of expression and how they’re operating; now is when these pieces re-arrange. Mercury likes details and tends to be a bit nervous, like a live wire looking for grounding. It’s an electric Air energy that re-charges with whatever it’s around. It’s up to us to deny, resist, fight…or accept and change. Thing is, change is happening either way – but whether or not we’re on board and floating down the stream of life or trying our damnedest to paddle against the current is up to us. Free will, and all.

Enter feminine Neptune retrograde. Watery Neptune is our connection to the aether, the mist. You can’t hold mist in your hand but you can let it hold you, you can surrender and allow yourself to be enveloped. Its energy permeates and dissolves all walls, boundaries, and structure and wants to help others so much it is willing to die in the process, to give all that it has or is for a greater purpose. Not only is there no right or wrong or truth or fiction, there isn’t even a concept of any of those things. Only what “is”. That doesn’t mean right and wrong and truth and fiction don’t exist in our experience of the real world, it means in the realm of Neptune all forms blend into one before they’re re-structured. Think of some of the “truths” in your life that turned out to, well, not be true. This is astrologically one of the times you get to re-define what is right/wrong, true/fiction for yourself.

Which beliefs is it time to let go of, and which beliefs is it time to bolster?

Neptune invites us into the blissful state of disengagement, disentanglement, and dissolution so that ultimate re-unification is possible. Think of meditation and/or any substance that alters awareness. For those sensitive among us, this can be a highly-charged period of opportunity to fine-tune intuition through meditation and become one with all…even a little bit more. Sometimes Neptune’s influence can bring disillusionment or depression; let yourself feel it. It is a grieving that comes any time we let go of something – even something we don’t want or need – and is often a part of shifting to higher vibrations. Ever had a dream where you are holding your breath under water and then you realize you can breathe?

Trust you can take that first breath.

Neptune expresses concepts through music, poetry, art, or anything beautiful and difficult to grasp or hold. It’s heady stuff and an energy in which it’s easy to get lost. If your tendency is to get lost chemically, this is an excellent time for a dry spell. Don’t take the red pill or the blue pill; you simply won’t need the boost if you pay attention to the natural one already around and within you. Find time alone for contemplation, to visualize what you want to create in life. Contemplation doesn’t have to mean staring at your navel unless that’s just what you’re into; get moving in whatever way inspires you and clears distractions from your mind.

It’s no universal mistake that this combination is taking place when solar energy is in Mercury-ruled Gemini, the communicator of the divine. You can travel from the heavens to earth and below – and then back again – to bring forth what you wish. It’s time to dream, because your thoughts are becoming real.

So how will you re-define the specific ways you communicate with the nothingness of yourself and the oneness of all?

How will you see in such a way that your vision is no longer yours, yet broader and unlimited in a way you hadn’t imagined?

Are you willing to let go of your need to so resolutely be the “you” as you have previously defined it – so that you might become an even fuller version of yourself in your future of this lifetime?